run I

run I

Captain Verdana sat in his big Captain’s Chair and wondered what he should do about the prisoners, much less their planet that he was ordered to devastate.  He had pleaded so as not to have to blow it up, and the council relented so long as he devastated their world enough to remove the threat of the Cane.

The little girl was pretty.  He wouldn’t have minded a bit of her, but he was sure that the strange creature that was obviously a bag of chips was her lover.  “What strange lovers these earth females keep,” he mused to himself.

“Pardon, Captain?” Giq asked.

“Oh, sorry,” Verdana said.  “Just talking to myself.”

“The planet is before us,” Giq said, rolling his eyes at his Captain’s musings.  “What are your orders?”

Captain Verdana was about to order Giq to fire upon the defenseless planet when an alarm went off.

celled

celled

Getting restless, Judas, the bag of chips, started to pace the floor in the cell.  Every thing about what had been going on was driving him insane.  The whole mess was confusing.

Another hour passed as they waited to hear from Captain Verdana again.  Whatever it was that he would say, Judas was sure it wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. 

A life time ago, he’d been sitting comfortable in a living room watching a sandwich plant seeds.  Yet, he left the comfort of that safe place to end up in a cell on a ship in space. 

“Fuck!” Judas, the back of chips, exclaimed.  “Rotten fucking shit.  Once, I was ignorant and happy.  Mother fuck!”

Miffed and stressed about Judas’s outburst, Liz sighed and rolled over on the little cot.  “Every thing will be fine, I’m sure,” Liz lied.

four

four

“I’ve been ordered to wage a war against your world,” Captain Verdana explained as he paced back and forth.   “What the substance called Sugar on your world had done is tear apart a very important planet.  A single drop if diluted Cane delivers a chemical euphoria into the Todevaalian brain.  Now the whole planet is addicted to the stuff.”

There was a silence that crossed the table. 

The earthlings sat there, wondering how sugar could be such a bad thing.

“Okay,” Liz said, “you what us to stop bringing sugar to space.  But what are you going to do about other smugglers?”

“Eradication,” Captain Verdana said.  “Lousy council wants me to destroy the whole planet.”

“Oh my god!” Judas the bag of chips blurted.  “Very overboard idea there.”

“Even if I could disobey the order, they would just send another ship to do the job,” Captain Verdana explained with a sigh.  “Damned imperial council has really blown this one way out of proportion.”

part tree

part tree

Liz sat in the corner chair with Judas, the bag of chips, beside her.  Opposite them sat Captain Verdana with his head in his hands. 
   
Verdana lifted his head and said, “I need to know if there were any other smugglers.  Everyone on your planet is in danger because of this.”

“I don’t know what your talking about,” Liz persisted.  “Sugar is all we have.  God, you can’t tell me that Sugar is illegal in space!”

“Only one place in the universe has the substance like sugar,” Verdana said.  “Nowhere else can we get it to grow.  Earth is the only planet it grows on.”

so on

so on

Irritated with the rouse, Captain Verdana sighed and motioned for the guards to take the couple into custody. 
   
“Admit that you’re here to meet a little Todevaalian with cane,” he persisted. 

Manacled and being held before Captain Verdana, Liz felt her heart pound in her chest.  She tried not to cry as she looked at the tall, attractive space man.  “Alright, we were here to meet some guy,” Liz whispered.  “Don’t hurt us,” she pleaded.

Just read it...

Just read it...

He stepped through the doorway to see his captives.  Every bone in his body told him he should have just blasted the little smuggler ship from existence when it was spotted, but Captain Verdana decided to see who the smugglers were.  Lights went on inside the little ship, illuminating two passengers.  Paused in mid-stride, Captain Verdana watched the two get out of their little ship.

“My Name is Captain Verdana, of the Imperial Armada,” he said.  “Everything in your ship is confiscated.”

“I’m missing something, I think,” Judas, the bag of chips, observed.  “Are we in trouble?”

Mixed with emotions of fear and amazement, Liz stood confident with Judas.  Any one could be out here, they had reasoned.  Lovers, out for a cruise, for instance.  Only one way to find out if it would work.  Now, with pulses beating heavily, Judas, the bag of chips, and Liz hoped they could pull of the innocent act.  Except, this Captain Verdana didn’t seem to be buying it.

inside the belly of the Flargnar

Inside the belly of the Flargnar

The inside of the ship was clean and bright, unlike the sleazy alien’s ship they had been on before.  Liz could feel her chest tighten as she looked around.  She was terrified to see what kind of alien would walk through a doorway near them.

“You think they’re here to pick up the sugar?” Judas, the bag of chips, wondered.

Liz shook her head.  It didn’t feel right.  She was sure they were in deep shit.

And then a doorway before them opened, and two silhouettes stood in the light from beyond the doorway. 
   
Liz gasped.

“Fuck,” Judas, the bag of chips, said.

big daddy thunder guns!

big daddy thunder guns!

“Where the fuck is this guy,” Liz asked, annoyed that they had been waiting for almost two hours for the little alien guy.  She looked at Judas, the bag of chips, and saw that he too was getting a little antsy.  “I’m getting a little worried, here.”

“Yeah,” Judas, the bag of chips, agreed.  “Maybe we should bug out for now.  Come back later, or something.”

“Yeah,” Liz said, but suddenly froze where she was because as she looked out the side of the car window, she saw a ship that seemed to come from nowhere.  It was silver and black with strange writing across it’s large domed front end.  It brandished what looked like guns that fit well with the whole ‘space ship’ theme.   It exuded a feeling of doom that sent shivers up Liz’s spine.

“Get out of here!” Judas, the bag of chips, uttered in a panic.

“Yeah,” Liz whispered, and she started the engine.  She turned the little space car around and tried to gun it away from the maniacal looking ship, but the little space car only hummed as it was drawn backwards. 

“Fuck!” Liz blurted out as she smacked the steering wheel.

Ahhh... III

Ahhh... III

Judas, the bag of chips, looked at Liz as she slept.  Her soft, naked form was pale in the light.  Her sweet face mushed against a pillow with drool running down her chin.  He smiled, happy to have a girl to have sex with again.  How long had it been?  Centuries.  Oh, and she was a delight.

He went to the window and looked out into the city.  They had found a little place in Pittsburgh to move into together.  Theirs was a romance based on money, sex, and alien influence.  Judas, the bag of chips, smiled at his world.  He had to go buy sugar, and load up the car.  It was soon time to meet their contact out in the solar system again.

Da good shtuff

Da good shtuff

Zimbo pushed the hyper-drive as hard as he could to get away from the forbidden stars system.  He was almost a light year away when his proximity alarms warned him that he had been trailed.  He checked the drive signatures and saw that it was an Imperial Armada destroyer. 

“Fuck!” Zimbo said.  There was no choice but to stop and allow them to board and inspect his cargo.  He couldn’t combat a destroyer.

He was being hailed.  He tuned into the frequency and sighed with relief.  “Oh, it’s only you,” Zimbo said.  “For a moment I was really worried.”

The man in the Imperial Armada uniform smiled and simply said, “I’d still have worried.”

A second later, Zimbo’s cargo ship carrying the illegal Cane exploded silently in the vacuum of space. 
 

Ans SO on../

And SO on../

The blue little man like creature who only stood a yard high took all the sugar from the trunk of the vehicle.  He put it into cases and returned to Liz and Judas, the bag of chips, ten gold bars that were six inches long, two wide, and an inch thick.  Enough gold to make the odd looks at the grocery stores for buying so much sugar at once seem forgotten. 

Gold collected, and the sugar gone, Judas, the bag of chips, and Liz headed back to Earth, happy to have made such a deal.

III

III

Captain Verdana walked slowly back onto his ship where his crew awaited.  His orders were simple, but he felt pretty awful for it.  He was not a man who regretted things, and now he was regretting involving the small planet that wanted none of his schemes.  Only, now he was their death sentence. 

Captain Verdana sighed as he walked through the airlock to his ship.

“Your orders, sir,” Giq asked as he stood just on board to find out what the big deal was about.

“Disembark,” Captain Verdana said.  “We’ve got work to do.”

III

III

“Captain Verdana?” the tall frog like gentleman at the front podium asked as Verdana stood before the eighteen men representing the eighteen major star systems in the Galactic Empire.

“Yes?” Captain Verdana returned.

“Your records show you to be the most courageous and adamant soldier in the Armada,” the frog like man continued.   “You have been a the sole survivor of many battles.  You have also been a valiant hero to many.  Your deeds as a soldier and hero are well documented. 

“Also, it is well documented that you have been implicated in many attempts at Piracy and the exploitation of several under-developed worlds.”

There was a silence that Captain Verdana knew was just the calm before the berating began.  He waited, never letting his stern face waver.

“I have asked you here for your help,” the tall frog man said.  “My world is afflicted, and we have found the culprit of our addiction.”

Captain Verdana didn’t need to be told the history of what had come to addict the planet of Todevaal.  It was his crowning achievement, he had remembered.  He found a substance on a small planet that had no contact as of yet with the Empire, that Giq had gone crazy for.  He found that anyone from the planet Todevaal reacted the same.  And the stuff was easy and cheep to obtain.  Captain Verdana had made a fortune in one year.  So much so that he gave up the business since he had made more in one year than he would otherwise have done all his life.  It was perfect.

Only, did this Todevaalian know about Captain Verdana’s involvement?

II

II

Captain Verdana dressed in his best uniform. It was the one that he saved for only the most auspicious occasions.  He looked at himself in the mirror that ran the length of his door in his quarters.  He smiled, his award accepting smile.  He knew he looked good.  He walked out of his quarters and to the link hatch.  He looked out the portal at the grand space station that was the hub of the Galactic Armada. 

He wondered briefly if he was going to be executed.  Eh, maybe they didn’t know that it was all his fault.

“Fuck,” he muttered.  He knew that he was only lying to himself if he tried to imagine they  believed he was innocent.